When I chose a clothing item to wear, on my avatar it is just a square box...why?

[Mortonn]

It doesn't actually put the clothes on him it just just has a square box on his body. Why is that?

[Rolig Loon]

Because you haven't taken the clothes out of the box that they were delivered in.  I could write out a long explanation of the many steps involved with buying, unpacking, and trying on clothes, but there's a very good Knowledge Base article that does it already.  See >>> http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Opening-boxes/ta-p/700185

[LoveAngeL Lyre]

Hello Morton and welcome to SL Forums. The stuff you purchase, arrives in your inventory as a box with contests and saved in the folder called "Objects" in your main inventory. You can't attach or wear the box immidiately. You must to open (unpack it). So you go at a region where you have the right to rezz. Public Sandboxes are recommended about. You can find several of them here. So choose a Sandbox --> View this destination --> View on map --> Visit this location --> You see a pop-up window --> Allow --> you see the place profile in your monitor in world on the right --> Teleport. When you arrive at the sandbox you drag the box on the ground --> right click on it --> Open --> Copy to inventory. A folder is created in your inventory (easier to find it looking at the 2nd tab of your inventory called "Recent"). Now you are ready to use (wear or add the stuff, clothes etc with right click on them in your inventory --> Wear or Add. You repeat the same process to open (unpack) all the boxes. When you finish it is good to delete them.